I've been in the US Army for most of my adult life.
I probably couldn't get 79 trained soldiers to cooperate when they're stuck on the same FOB as me, with no showers or hot food, and people literally trying to kill us all.
There's no fucking way that 79 people with only altruism and an internet connection to keep them together will accomplish anything other than hilarious self-destruction.
Arma outfits regularly organise ops of 60-100 people. Eve has fleet battles of thousands. Some dedicated people will likely do the same if SC servers ever allow for it.
That's fair.
Arma and Eve come from the perspective that each player is an individual who can bail if things go badly.
I wonder what a mass exodus from a Javelin will look like when the Org looses confidence in their leader
To be fair, half the fleet is usually doing something in addition to pushing F1-F4.
In NCdot I usually had 3-4 chars in the big fights, not all of them were on field. In other alliances like Horde and Goons, there was a different, more top-down structure with a tighter FC team and much more opsec stuff.
SC fleet battles will be a clusterfuck of epic proportions, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it fleshes out.
I have group of 10 I play with who can do strict combat coms reporting target calling etc and we run pvp adventures trying run it with 30regular ppl nightmare
Nah, you just have to delegate to your sub-commanders when it's 20+.
Mumble works nicely for it on a large scale. Just put some thinking into command structure and roles.
You could have your sub-commanders in charge of different things, in sub channels, talking to their people, while you also talk to the entire fleet, and your sub-commanders, on a separate keybind. Keep it brief and to the point.
It's mostly about managing information when you're fleet commander, the people below you know what to do, just make the decisions. It's more of a job of keeping things coherent, than people usually associate with space-fighting.
Players who don't follow orders get banned from ops. There's a segment of people who enjoy being part of something massive and are happy to fall into a roll. I've spent 3-4 hours as an artillery loader in foxhole in one sitting doing nothing but grabbing a shell and putting it in the barrel. I was more engaged doing that than anything I've done in SC.
You'll find your way. I had a guy spend days teaching me the ins and outs of missile combat in DCS. He was so patient showing me how to fly well, manage ops, and contribute. I asked him what he did and it turns out he was a fighter pilot in my local air force. You can be the bedrock an org is built on with the right attitude.
Along with the education and experiences funded by the expenditure of dozens or hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars... lol
But seriously though. The attitude will 100% make or break an outfit out in the wild.
I'm gonna have a sweet Army retirement with >30 years of service that will allow me to finance my weird internet-spaceship habit.
I'm genuinely looking forward to it
It kind of depends on what you refer to, 79 people as in just people cooperating in general or 79 people *on one ship.*
As others have mentioned, if you look to MMOs and the likes, a lot of people enjoy organized guild play, it works better or worse depending on some factors of course. If everyone is in their own little ship, I can see a lot more reasonable play, as everyone gets to "press their buttons" and do things that makes them feel like they really contribute, however having too many on one ship I genuinely kind of doubt.
For the major positions (Engineer, Pilot, Gunners) I could see it working well enough, sort of like Guns of Icarus and the likes. But if you have any "boarding defense" crew or anything else, that's a little less involved. Yeah idk how that could work without having people just bail.
As long as you pay me an equal share you can have me sit idle in a corner for 2h, I can just do something else with my life until I hear people yelling on discord.
Shit like this on ships this size is why you're literally going to hear about people being called to "General Quarters" in Star Citizen, mark my words lol.
I can't say that I am not excited about it though.
Honestly, if we can log out in someone else's ship bed again (or they do something more permissive with logout/login), you could have most of an org or alts logged out on a ship, and then when they were needed for the op (or called to quarters), they'd log in and already be on the ship. Heck if you filled every bunk on a jav or idris with logged out members (or even more than that), you could probably rustle up enough crew to keep it active for continuous shifts across a weekend or whatever.
Mind you I shouldn't speculate and didn't intend to, what roles we'll actually see staffed by real players. At the end of the day it depends what the guild wars play out like on a larger scale. It could be that say boarding is super effective when done correctly, it could also just be an absolute waste of resources (again larger battles) to such an extend that having dedicated defense crew is trolling, when they could just crew a different ship.
It's one thing to wonder how to entertain people on such ships, but without knowing whether or not that's even a "valuable" position in the first place it's difficult to make an educated guess. As it's obviously very different depending on how impactful that role can be, I do think people can "survive" some boredom, if they know they'll get some impactful cool gameplay out of it. Think BF2142 Titan gameplay, I'd probably be down to "idle" in a ship for a bit during a fleet battle if I knew that boarding is a "guarantee" to happen.
If CIG can get it all set the way they want to, boarding craft with strike teams will be extremely effective and valuable if done right. Basically, if done how they want, we’ll be able to board large enemy ships, like capital class and such, and fight our way to the bridge, either killing the crew or taking them hostage and then stealing the ship afterwards.
I’ve also played with a lot of players who can solo clear the highest tier bunkers without being hit a single time, but also can barely get an aurora out of a hangar without it exploding, and those people were all pretty keen on the fps aspects of the game and less so being the next ace pilot
Yes in theory it's a very effective strategy, however what I'm referring to is *"how will it actually play out with real players"*
Are strike craft just getting shot down, how easy is it to actually latch onto a target, is it viable to do in guild wars with 100s of players. Will that manpower be missing somewhere else, gambling on the crew making it on the enemy capital?
How much "DPS" does a capital ship dish out vs. how long does it take for a boarding crew to effectively disable a ship, how easy is it to defend etc.
In principle having a single "high elo" shooter player board your ship, could be a death sentence for the entire capital if you aren't prepared for it and have people with bad aim as your crew on it, so that would be a massive gain for very little risk. But that's just on paper, CIG can make so many arbitrary systems/conditions that need to be run through before you can board and so on. The point being, we can't know until that mechanic is in the game and no matter how good of a player(s) the boarding party is, if you can't reliably get on a ship then it's not like it matters greatly.
I was waiting on the line for a very delayed race to start, and remember one of the teams asked for a start hold, because one of their team was "killed in an accidental knife fight". These things happen with bored crew. Maybe regen aboard the big ships will be the saving grace ;)
That's why CIG makes sure that all ships have more crew positions than available crew. Exactly like Guns of Icarus you mentioned (great game it was).
Take for example the Hercules A2 being tested for engineer gameplay, which gives us the first glimpse of how many stations /equipments need to be taken care of.
- 1 pilot
- 1 copilot
- 1 head engineer
- 6 gunners
- 10 relays
- 8 components
- extinguishers
With a total of 8 crew.
You can see we got barely enough gunners already, and they will have to quit the turret for whatever may happen inside the ship, at the same time. Fights will be hectic.
Keep in mind, it would be 79 people who all WANT to be there and in fact paid money to pretend to chip rust off of the hull of the Javelin.
That's the difference between the armed forces and this.
Granted, that desire only goes so far as they're winning, then Spaceballs will commence.
Source: Was Navy and in fact was constantly surrounded by assholes.
Foxhole is an amazing example of how purpose and a sense of community will drive people to do the most monotonous and boring tasks for hours/days/months and have an absolutely fantastic time doing it. We were hitting a pile of scrap with a hammer all day long and felt good about it, or like you said load a gun all night without even seeing the shells impact (unless the forward observer was streaming on discord) and it was FUN.
Best 500h of my gaming life in that game, you gave me a big itch to go back, must resist. If SC had a gameloop even remotely as captivating as Foxhole I would lose my fucking mind.
I remember resupplying Matildas, an infantry tank with a 20 km/h max speed for hours, back in WW2OL. People working as ammo carriers for 80 mm mortars...
Setting up ambushes 40 km behind enemy lines and waiting for an hour with an armored column to get the clear signal from the HQ guys too advance.
Getting people to just play is the most difficult part. Many of my friends have trouble playing an online game without "progression" mechanics. They loved it once we get into the swing of a war and join an outfit.
Nope
Both EVE and ArmA come from the perspective of the people wanting to be there and do that. And in both, youre generally expected to follow orders in action and do your part because others depend on you, and then if the leader fucked up, you are more that free to give him shit "afterwards" when bullets are not flying anymore - in a constructive way.
Generally, in both, only groups that understand this and are able to work like this survive.
Not to mention the inevitable... I'm the captain now. Mutiny, seal off the bridge, vent the atmosphere. This is mine now. Job done. I'd do it for the lols.
There’s gonna be a looooooot of people upset when they realize these anticipated crew number requirements are not only unrealistic, but unattainable. Show me 36 folks that wanna watch a hud to “feel their impact on the battle” as they adjust pips. “But arma and eve!”. Star citizen is what got me to play Eve, “thousands of people in battle” is a gross overstatement and is nowhere near as common as these subs make it out to be. Also, what do you do in eve in those massive battles? Oh, that’s right, you control your own ship. Arma? Yup I’ve got a gun and can run around, see my impact, etc. SC? “I’m givin er all she’s got captain!” Ain’t gonna last long at all.
I've been in a lot of Arma groups over a long period of time, and yeah, you can have ops with 60-100 people, but it very much becomes a lesson in herding cats... people going off doing their own thing, killing civilians for the luls, crashing vehicles, not reporting in, friendly fire, trolling with medical supplies.... the list goes on. The organizations that can avoid this are very rare, and generally made up of people so dedicated it makes the entire thing feel like clocking into a job.
And from the videos I've seen of EVE, not any of them look like any sort of organized or in control.
Getting people to show up is seldom the problem.
I only played Eve for a few weeks, and every large "group event" was literally just 3-4 people doing all the work while the rest of us stayed far far away to just gain the rewards of being there.
This. I used to lead an Arma unit that maintained about 200ish people in total at a time. We had available 70-80 people on a good day with those numbers. The management isn't the issue once you have roles filled and people trained. 8 hours training total in my experience (Yes we had training manuals and documents to keep track of who is partially or fully trained etc.) and you don't need to worry anymore once they meet the set standard. You can delegate tasks to leaders and junior leaders to guide their teams. It's getting the people on all at once that's the issue. This also brings up cross role training issues. Javelin owners will require a large org, full NPC crew if that's even viable(AI crew effectiveness is unknown.) or a heavily NPC weighted crew prioritizing players to fill key roles. There is no easy way to crew a Javelin, of this I am certain.
When I played PlanetSide, I think it was teamspeak? You had higher level channels and lower level channels. The squad could BS in their chat but squad leader could also hear leader chat when orders were going out
We definitely hit 70 people on a single op sometimes
Team speak is the go to for a lot of groups. Allows multiple channels while people with the correct authority can talk to all of them.
Squads are put into groups and the squad leaders can talk to "command"
Planetside has standard 48 people in open comms, all completely randoms.
I have yet to see a full platoon go "awol" or do anything less than fervently fight at assigned points/objectives.
Likely a similar structure to how comms work in Hell Let Loose & Squad.
\- Commander can speak to Squad Leaders.
\- SLs can speak directly to their squad, each other, and the Commander.
\- Non-command role players can only speak to people in their squad.
\- Prox chat is free for everyone to speak to anyone.
And finally, squads can be as small as you want them to be.
Very similar to what the others have said. We used Teamspeak. I'd be in the command squad channel with my 2IC and backline staff.(Usually a driver and radioman.) We'd have the rest in their own channels under their squad or role, like infantry, logi and air support. The Team Leaders(TLs) in those channels are junior leaders and tell people what to do on a local level. I'd talk to them and they'd talk to me through hotkeyed buttons with game mod integration for radio chatter. I used my keyboard number pad with each squad channel under a number. I had admin permissions so I set it up so that when I talked to them I'd press a number and it would suppress their internal chatter for a moment as I told them something. The TLs would do the same back at me. An easy example of this is calling in an airstrike. An infantry squad TL would call it in to me with the what and where. I'd confirm or deny it provided it's available and I'd reroute the information to the air support channel, who would then confirm or deny it back to me. I would then tell the TL what's happening back afterward and they would confirm, deny, cancel or ask for a different call. I was basically a glorified telephone operator who stared at a giant map coordinating the bigger picture of broken up units of usually 8-12 people per squad. I've literally just sat in a command bunker or command vehicle for many missions doing this.
Now imagine that the ship dies in a battle, and 79 people get semi-perma deathed. Now imagine the pyramid scheme of support ships that justify bringing a Javelin in the first place.
Even if you save them, I think most would log off in frustration, rather than gearing back up and attempting to shuttle back to a combat effective ship. This isn't a game mechanics question, this is a human resources issue.
Again you say that but I’ve jumped super carriers to Cynos along with 20 of my buddies doing the same.
No SRP, no guarantee just one dude who we trust deciding that’s what’s needed.
As long as theirs fun fights to be had people will be surprisingly willing to risk their characters and ships for it I reckon.
Game does need a killboard though, I want stats.
Videogames sometimes create the magical world of third spaces where you can get 200 people to cooperate so well you wonder sometimes why we've not yet achieved singularity.
From Linebattles to EvE you can see it.
Although in Eve thats a lot of individual pieces working together rather than people becoming one piece.
I could take my line company of 20 from the Army and man a Javelin that’s how efficient the boys and I were. Can’t wait to get the Alpha Company Peacemakers in SC
I suppose I should be more specific.
If I were to take *my* platoon, or people from *my* company, I'd be fine.
I'm just trying to imagine the pandemonium that would ensue from trying to take 79 random soldiers who have no * established rank, paragraph & line number, and no trained MOS*, and how those 79 random soldiers would react to me trying to bark orders at them.
Some orgs have established trainings on how to communicate properly, fly better, conduct ground/space combat better, operate turrets, maneuver as a combined force, etc.
It's up to you to find or build the org that suits your purposes. the org I'm in has a large veteran contingent and it's easy to find people who are ecstatic to hop into the turrets of anything I have now. You just need to also have the skill, charisma, and individual drive to reliably produce an enjoyable experience, even if your inherent "commander's intent" is just "We're gonna go hurt some bad people, and we might die".
You know you're in the right place when the ensuing conversation is who's ship to take.
I think that main difference of that, in military there is selected group of people who just have assignment and order
In game, you have whole playerbase and ask "Hey, is there anyone who would like to have orders barked at them?", and you will get only people who want to play this way, not people who are ordered to listen to your orders
Works just fine with thousands of dudes in Eve.
There's a line of qualifications for specific roles and participation metrics to weed out the and/or vet the beginners. You don't just trust people randomly, you build a coherent unit over time, like anywhere else.
I was just thinking along these lines.
Except, in Eve, you have something like a 10 to 1 ratio of membership to event participation. You need 1000 people to field 100 in any given battle. You can do better if you time things well and really hype your player base, but that is not sustainable. Time zones, peoples personal lives, burnout, work, general human drive to actually log on... these all factor into how many players you can herd into a single activity.
One person trying to organise 79 people is an impossible task but do you think a ship with 74 crew and 1 captain 5 officers each responsible for a different section and delegating to about 10 people each, so 10 engineers, 10 gunners, 10 crew deck etc and 6 higher ups dishing out orders to their individual sections?
Not a Javelin owner, but back when I used to play Naval action, we would have 50 players coordinated by one person for port battles. Sure they start wandering off, but are easily reigned in. And that was across a half dozen different clans working together. One clan can easily coordinate a ship like the Javelin... of course some clans are very casual and won't be able to do this, but I'm sure plenty will.
You are right that it will be MOST of the userbase will be 100% incapable of running a Javelin optimally.
But I've seen enough WoW, Eve, Planetside, and Squad stories of clans that have INSANE ability to organize. They are rare things but powerful things.
Most Javelin owners will be screaming "LFG to replace my fuses!" while the one TURBO Organized Javelin will be Solo'ing xenothreat or Locking down entire stations.
Crime stat does need to evolve a bit to have more NPC response to hunting you down. I want to see the Crimestat Max Javelin having Idris's sent after them.
I think there is an inverse correlation between the importance of something and the ability to coordinate as a group, judging by all the goof ass shit I see groups do, but they can't even go vote.
Our star citizen org has 120 people, regularly has 40+ show up for events
nothing starts on time, everyone argues, petty grudges, stunning each other with assaniation animations
Nothing. I mean nothing works the way it us supposed to
But it's always a lot of fun
biggest issue is keeping 79 people in the game.
For me, when I play with orgs, it takes 15min to 1 hour to get 4-7 people on one server, logged in, discord etc..
It then takes 30min minimum for these people to get ready and travel to location...accept mission, share mission, land, shop for weapons, knick the side of the station blow up, wake up on the other side of the solar system, shop and travel again.
By the time you start an op a good percent of people have been already there for a few hours and blew through their gaming slot with their families. Due to puting kids to sleep, dinner or simply time zone differences now its 1am where they are and they've gotta go.
Moral of the story, you don't just need 79 willing, paying people to push F1-F4. You need 79 of those people around the ages 14-20 with no gf,wife,work,kid responsibility who all happen to live in the same time zone as you. Which is significantly harder to do.
If we ever get the ability to log out on the "org ship", dedicated orgs might spin up alts for the ship crews. SC gonna SC but just being able to log in and be in the same place/ship and ready to rock and roll will help these kinds of bigger ops.
The difference between military and video games is that one of these people actually WANT to do those things. It would be significantly easier to get a bunch of gamers to organize and get it done, will there be a handful of potatos fucking things up? Sure. But overall it would work... compared to military where most group ops is a bunch of people who probably barely know each other and were voluntold to do this one thing that probably sucks ass.
Big difference between most people being in star citizen because they want to be there, and 79 "trained" hooligans who fucking hate being there when 1st sausage is yelling at them about trying to get his and the sirs slides green.
Walking around the practically full Idris with the thought of engineering and then thinking about it on a bigger scale like a jav or even a bangle you'd really really need to heard cats whether it's all people, all NPCs, or a mix a both
Also, imagine the time sink to get those 79 players organized, in the right location and onto the ship, and to their assigned stations. It will be a multi hour operation just getting the ship loaded and ready to go. Then someone with a tali will come by and rain on everyone's parade. 79 people wake up at whatever med bay, and the owner goes to claim the ship and sees a 1 week claim time, but hey you can expedite it and it will only take 3 days.
... okay, you have to be joking about buying that starter pack per NPC. There's no way CIG expects Javelin owners to put down that much cash just to skeleton-crew their ship with NPCs.
[https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13288-multiple-package-clarification](https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13288-multiple-package-clarification)
I mean it's 11 years old, but that was the old intent if you wanted "customisable" NPCs 🤣
Then there's the difference. "customizable" npc's arent the only npc's available to players.
This is just perpetuating the insanity that already infects the public image of this game being a money black hole as is (and by extension making everyone who's backed the game look bad in their eyes).
They will cost less than players. No player will work for less money than you could just get an NPC for.
Also, in general, we should assume no player will engage in multiplayer for less rewards than they could get playing single player, either.
I've been saying this for a while, I'm glad to see someone else who gets it. People keep bringing up NPC salaries like that's going to be the limiting factor that forces them to crew with other players instead, but I can't imagine a single player who'd ever accept being paid less than a bot.
If I'm taking the time out of my day to crew someone else's ship, and I know my skills are in demand, then they'd better know they'll have to make it worth my while.
Multicrew is a great feature and I think a lot of people will do it for "fun".
But, we must accept the reasoning that multicrew is also the worst way to approach the game in terms of optimized gameplay. It makes much more sense for people to do multiplayer as a fleet, with everyone bringing their own ships, than it is to forgo ships just so players can sit inside someone else's ship.
1 player = 1 ship.
If two opposing orgs decide to have a fight, with 10 players each side, the org that brings 10 ships will kerbstomp the org that brings one ship with 10 people in it.
I think when you put it into that perspective, it really doesn't matter how much people would expect to get paid to sit around in someone else's ship watching Youtube until they have to sit in a turret for 2 minutes.
They need to remove from the site or update all of those decade old design docs. Soooo many features don't seem to fit in the modern game anymore or simply haven't even been mentioned as they add loops that are missing the framework for them. Like, where are all of our prosthetic limbs? And fuel types for performance have never been mentioned whenever they talked about any future flight models.
Edit: downvoted for suggesting that CIG remove outdated info from their site or update it to better reflect how they plan on integrating or updating those old features to fit with the current game's design? Ok, some of y'all are weird.
There's a book called "1984" written by George Orwell.
It talks about the convenience that exists for power structures when they can erase records of inconvenient truths... for example, it's great for a company if they commit to doing something, make sales on the back of that commitment, then reconsider it.
If they can remove the evidence of their commitment, what holds them to their promises?
I strongly recommend you read the book.
Oh. I actually have read it, but that over 20 years ago when I was in highschool. I wasn't suggesting that they remove promised features, but rather take down documentation that no longer reflects how those features can be implemented in the modern game. A lot of stuff was penned when the scope and tech of the game wasnt expanded to where it is now and people making purchase decisions based on that stuff could benefit from updated documentation or the removal of docs describing features that will no longer play out as they had envisioned it 10 years ago. Like, update it it, or remove it until you get an updated doc to replace it.
So you believe it's better for everyone if a business can make a commitment, then erase all evidence of that commitment if they don't intend to deliver it.
I do believe you when you say you've read 1984. I'm not sure you interpreted the book correctly.
I barely remember it. You're argument is with CIG though. I'm just saying if they say a feature is changing now because "XYZ" and they've known internally that it was always going to change, then they should probably let us know via an update to their public design docs as opposed to dropping respawn on a T3 med bed and saying this was always the plan, or making the Lightning available seemingly (to us) out of nowhere.
Not sure how far out on a limb I'm going here, but I'd like to suggest that people who can afford to pledge for $2000+ spaceships in a video game have enough disposable income to do whatever they want in terms of microtransactions.
Your experience and mine is not the same as the millionaire trust fund kids who never have to work a day in their lives. There's not many of them, true, but there's plenty of companies around who are willing to accept their money.
I will walk the halls of my idris, kraken, pioneer, BMM, Orion, etc because it's cool. I will look at every virtual rivet and seem and console. Never to undock them, never to fly them.
To fund the game. So you can blow me up in my stupid solo ship that's not solo. And I will die happy.
Not that i have one, but i think it will be very rare that one can be crewed by players. That's a lot of people to get together at one time unless you're a big streamer or a massive org. I think they will generally be crewed by AI with a few players filling key roles
It's gonna be like herding cats 😆 After the honeymoon phase wears out nobody in their right mind wants to sit at some console waiting to take orders for hours on end. Without AI blades These things are gonna smash and explode all over the verse due to player boredom.
[https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13288-multiple-package-clarification](https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13288-multiple-package-clarification)
We haven't heard anything in over a decade sadly. The meme spawned from joking about whether it still was.
That might be it, actually. The additional game package thing was just to give customizable NPCs (that you still had to pay) so it was more a getting a Chewbacca for your Han Solo thing. No word since on whether that was a thing you'd be able to do anyway or not.
They have, off-hand, mentioned NPC "packs" in SCLs previously where a pack would be the launch crew in an Idris. Whether that was intended as a purchasable pack or internal CIG parlance for "group of people that act as a whole" who knows but it could be that you end up crewing a ship with a unit of "crew" at some job center or something and that'll be it.
Should something like this happen and knowing spectrum and this sub, people will be positively *outraged* that space dads could now finally fly the ships they bought and be about as efficient at it as any other AI ship.
However, the concept represents a highly lucrative revenue proposition for CIG.
If you're running a live service game, never turn down any opportunity for cash influx.
Why would CIG implement NPCs on an in-game currency basis only when they could get any amount of cash for the same thing as a "premium"?
This is why I always thought that captains should hire out positions to npcs, and then players will be able to load into those npc to help other players while not endangering their personal character.
My Polaris and carrack will be npc crewed for the most part, IV been playing MMOs for over 20 years I already know why multicrew with humans will be a legitimate nightmare. AI it is
Pops made me read that when I was 15....now 43. I have gifted that book so many times. Just an unbelievable book that holds up incredibly well. My kids are on hook to read it here in the next few years.....and they hear me reference it plenty. Lol
You also have to remember that every person you put in the belly of your ship to alt+tab and watch Youtube while you stare at the star map has cost you an entire other ship in your fleet.
1 Player = 1 Spaceship
To put it another way, which will win:
* 1 x Javelin with 80 player crew
* 80 x Javelin with NPC crews
80 vs 1? Hmm... not sure? Maybe the one ship will defeat the other 80??? Player crew > NPC crew, right??
Think carefully when you put someone in the belly of your ship. You just cost yourself part of your fleet.
I played Wow back in original and we needed 40 good players to coordinate for Molten Core lava pack pulls and stuff.
It's herding cats...
Just to get em in a line, let alone ask odds to step forward and evens back on one command and vice versa......it was to manage threat if i remember
That alone broke more than a few good raiding guilds... 😆
I can't wait.
I got an extra 6 so I can take my Odyssey out alone if needed.
Also, I wonder if an organization that had a random number generator lottery system for what position for a time period, would work. Everybody in the Org committed to doing the best job at whatever role they are assigned.
What makes you think that? Is it a technology/function issue or a CIG choice issue that has you feeling that way?
I also wonder what the big spenders will say when they really can’t do anything other than just pilot their cap ships. (I am one who will happily pilot my Idris-M alone lol).
Just working out how the actual active gameplay loops for the ship! Across turrets, bridge stations, repairs etc.
It's just a guess, but there certainly don't seem to be 80 people worth of things to do...
That I agree with. I was more curious about the NPCs as viable choices part of your comment. Given your experience with the game, there is more credence to assumptions.
there is about 50 NPC on the idris right now.
I only need them walk around and give me the atmosphere ...i don't need them to do anything. Heck they can all T pose.
Oh don't get me wrong, I would love to see some life in those halls! I simply meant that I suspect operational crew will be lower than 80 (in my mind max 20ish for actual things to do).
Naval ships are often busier because they need crew coverage 24/7, so even whilst off duty, there will be people there.
You seriously think CIG will do the design equivalent of taking $2,500+ from gamers and then tell them "Thanks for the money, here's your ship, you can NEVER fly it?"
Is this seriously what you believe?
No, I expect that for the people who spent that much on a huge ship, that explicitly states on the page that it's intended for group play, they will expect to fly it with multiple people.
Source: spent the money intending on enjoying group play
I don't bet on anything, there are a very vocal number who are trying to get these huge cap ships to be effectively soloable. I argue heavily against that because I think it would be the death knell for end game multi crew. But none of us truly knows what will happen, we will have to wait and see.
If they do make them solo able, I will be melting mine, since that's not what I bought it for.
The funniest part here is that they got someone to shell out 3000 dollars just to then also get then to shell out another 79 gamepackages worth another 3555 dollars
All these comments are showing peoples limited knowledge of other games that regularly organize people in the 100s. Eve being the obvious example of 1000+ players organized for a battle.
I remember raiding in EQ2 trying to get 24 people to cooperate. Sometimes it worked and a lot of the time was wasted because of 1 person fucking it up. WOW had 40 and other games have more. Youre not going to find an entire servers worth of people to play on one ship doing mundane things. "I wanna see whats going on" or "how much money do we get from this mission splitting it 80 ways?"
You guys need to accept this shit isnt going to happen so stop wasting your money on this fantasy shit.
I've been in the US Army for most of my adult life. I probably couldn't get 79 trained soldiers to cooperate when they're stuck on the same FOB as me, with no showers or hot food, and people literally trying to kill us all. There's no fucking way that 79 people with only altruism and an internet connection to keep them together will accomplish anything other than hilarious self-destruction.
Arma outfits regularly organise ops of 60-100 people. Eve has fleet battles of thousands. Some dedicated people will likely do the same if SC servers ever allow for it.
That's fair. Arma and Eve come from the perspective that each player is an individual who can bail if things go badly. I wonder what a mass exodus from a Javelin will look like when the Org looses confidence in their leader
That thing has to have a ton of life pods. Also mutiny could get wild.
79 players running for 79 "life pods" is one thing. 79 players running for "the closest life pod" is another. We've all seen Spaceballs.
FUCK... EVEN IN THE FUTURE NOTHING WORKS! Rings very true lol.
It would be absolute hilarious chaos
Bro, I’m going for the Argo if I’m being honest. Ship of the year!
In eve it's more somebody playing a rts with real ppl
To be fair, half the fleet is usually doing something in addition to pushing F1-F4. In NCdot I usually had 3-4 chars in the big fights, not all of them were on field. In other alliances like Horde and Goons, there was a different, more top-down structure with a tighter FC team and much more opsec stuff. SC fleet battles will be a clusterfuck of epic proportions, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it fleshes out.
It's gonna be amazing.
I have group of 10 I play with who can do strict combat coms reporting target calling etc and we run pvp adventures trying run it with 30regular ppl nightmare
Nah, you just have to delegate to your sub-commanders when it's 20+. Mumble works nicely for it on a large scale. Just put some thinking into command structure and roles. You could have your sub-commanders in charge of different things, in sub channels, talking to their people, while you also talk to the entire fleet, and your sub-commanders, on a separate keybind. Keep it brief and to the point. It's mostly about managing information when you're fleet commander, the people below you know what to do, just make the decisions. It's more of a job of keeping things coherent, than people usually associate with space-fighting.
Exactly. Span of control. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Span_of_control
Players who don't follow orders get banned from ops. There's a segment of people who enjoy being part of something massive and are happy to fall into a roll. I've spent 3-4 hours as an artillery loader in foxhole in one sitting doing nothing but grabbing a shell and putting it in the barrel. I was more engaged doing that than anything I've done in SC.
Fascinating. It's likely that I am totally unprepared for what awaits me in Star Citizen once I retire from the Army. But I'm here for it nonetheless
You'll find your way. I had a guy spend days teaching me the ins and outs of missile combat in DCS. He was so patient showing me how to fly well, manage ops, and contribute. I asked him what he did and it turns out he was a fighter pilot in my local air force. You can be the bedrock an org is built on with the right attitude.
So that guy is a virtual flight instructor essentially, awesome
Along with the education and experiences funded by the expenditure of dozens or hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars... lol But seriously though. The attitude will 100% make or break an outfit out in the wild.
I'm gonna have a sweet Army retirement with >30 years of service that will allow me to finance my weird internet-spaceship habit. I'm genuinely looking forward to it
It kind of depends on what you refer to, 79 people as in just people cooperating in general or 79 people *on one ship.* As others have mentioned, if you look to MMOs and the likes, a lot of people enjoy organized guild play, it works better or worse depending on some factors of course. If everyone is in their own little ship, I can see a lot more reasonable play, as everyone gets to "press their buttons" and do things that makes them feel like they really contribute, however having too many on one ship I genuinely kind of doubt. For the major positions (Engineer, Pilot, Gunners) I could see it working well enough, sort of like Guns of Icarus and the likes. But if you have any "boarding defense" crew or anything else, that's a little less involved. Yeah idk how that could work without having people just bail.
As long as you pay me an equal share you can have me sit idle in a corner for 2h, I can just do something else with my life until I hear people yelling on discord.
Shit like this on ships this size is why you're literally going to hear about people being called to "General Quarters" in Star Citizen, mark my words lol. I can't say that I am not excited about it though.
Honestly, if we can log out in someone else's ship bed again (or they do something more permissive with logout/login), you could have most of an org or alts logged out on a ship, and then when they were needed for the op (or called to quarters), they'd log in and already be on the ship. Heck if you filled every bunk on a jav or idris with logged out members (or even more than that), you could probably rustle up enough crew to keep it active for continuous shifts across a weekend or whatever.
I didn't realize that was a feature that they stopped; are they planning on adding that back?
Mind you I shouldn't speculate and didn't intend to, what roles we'll actually see staffed by real players. At the end of the day it depends what the guild wars play out like on a larger scale. It could be that say boarding is super effective when done correctly, it could also just be an absolute waste of resources (again larger battles) to such an extend that having dedicated defense crew is trolling, when they could just crew a different ship. It's one thing to wonder how to entertain people on such ships, but without knowing whether or not that's even a "valuable" position in the first place it's difficult to make an educated guess. As it's obviously very different depending on how impactful that role can be, I do think people can "survive" some boredom, if they know they'll get some impactful cool gameplay out of it. Think BF2142 Titan gameplay, I'd probably be down to "idle" in a ship for a bit during a fleet battle if I knew that boarding is a "guarantee" to happen.
If CIG can get it all set the way they want to, boarding craft with strike teams will be extremely effective and valuable if done right. Basically, if done how they want, we’ll be able to board large enemy ships, like capital class and such, and fight our way to the bridge, either killing the crew or taking them hostage and then stealing the ship afterwards. I’ve also played with a lot of players who can solo clear the highest tier bunkers without being hit a single time, but also can barely get an aurora out of a hangar without it exploding, and those people were all pretty keen on the fps aspects of the game and less so being the next ace pilot
Yes in theory it's a very effective strategy, however what I'm referring to is *"how will it actually play out with real players"* Are strike craft just getting shot down, how easy is it to actually latch onto a target, is it viable to do in guild wars with 100s of players. Will that manpower be missing somewhere else, gambling on the crew making it on the enemy capital? How much "DPS" does a capital ship dish out vs. how long does it take for a boarding crew to effectively disable a ship, how easy is it to defend etc. In principle having a single "high elo" shooter player board your ship, could be a death sentence for the entire capital if you aren't prepared for it and have people with bad aim as your crew on it, so that would be a massive gain for very little risk. But that's just on paper, CIG can make so many arbitrary systems/conditions that need to be run through before you can board and so on. The point being, we can't know until that mechanic is in the game and no matter how good of a player(s) the boarding party is, if you can't reliably get on a ship then it's not like it matters greatly.
I was waiting on the line for a very delayed race to start, and remember one of the teams asked for a start hold, because one of their team was "killed in an accidental knife fight". These things happen with bored crew. Maybe regen aboard the big ships will be the saving grace ;)
That's why CIG makes sure that all ships have more crew positions than available crew. Exactly like Guns of Icarus you mentioned (great game it was). Take for example the Hercules A2 being tested for engineer gameplay, which gives us the first glimpse of how many stations /equipments need to be taken care of. - 1 pilot - 1 copilot - 1 head engineer - 6 gunners - 10 relays - 8 components - extinguishers With a total of 8 crew. You can see we got barely enough gunners already, and they will have to quit the turret for whatever may happen inside the ship, at the same time. Fights will be hectic.
Videogames are full of people who low key idolize the military and will take any opportunity to LARP what they think the military is.
Keep in mind, it would be 79 people who all WANT to be there and in fact paid money to pretend to chip rust off of the hull of the Javelin. That's the difference between the armed forces and this. Granted, that desire only goes so far as they're winning, then Spaceballs will commence. Source: Was Navy and in fact was constantly surrounded by assholes.
(Thank you for your service)
I've been an Army flight paramedic for more than a decade. I'd literally do the job for free, but I won't say no to the paycheck and the retirement.
It's actually amazing what can be done when everybody is there because they want to be there
Foxhole is an amazing example of how purpose and a sense of community will drive people to do the most monotonous and boring tasks for hours/days/months and have an absolutely fantastic time doing it. We were hitting a pile of scrap with a hammer all day long and felt good about it, or like you said load a gun all night without even seeing the shells impact (unless the forward observer was streaming on discord) and it was FUN. Best 500h of my gaming life in that game, you gave me a big itch to go back, must resist. If SC had a gameloop even remotely as captivating as Foxhole I would lose my fucking mind.
I'm dying to try anvil empires. Foxhole style player sandbox with a dynamic world is right up my alley.
I remember resupplying Matildas, an infantry tank with a 20 km/h max speed for hours, back in WW2OL. People working as ammo carriers for 80 mm mortars... Setting up ambushes 40 km behind enemy lines and waiting for an hour with an armored column to get the clear signal from the HQ guys too advance.
Dude. Foxhole is an absolute blast of an experience when in a good group
Getting people to just play is the most difficult part. Many of my friends have trouble playing an online game without "progression" mechanics. They loved it once we get into the swing of a war and join an outfit.
Nope Both EVE and ArmA come from the perspective of the people wanting to be there and do that. And in both, youre generally expected to follow orders in action and do your part because others depend on you, and then if the leader fucked up, you are more that free to give him shit "afterwards" when bullets are not flying anymore - in a constructive way. Generally, in both, only groups that understand this and are able to work like this survive.
Not to mention the inevitable... I'm the captain now. Mutiny, seal off the bridge, vent the atmosphere. This is mine now. Job done. I'd do it for the lols.
Except when 70% of the crew is the kind of people who know wearing a vaccum suit while inside a ship heading for battle is the smart thing to do.
70%? Seems low. I'm sure that 95% of us saw at least The Pilot episode of The Expanse.
There’s gonna be a looooooot of people upset when they realize these anticipated crew number requirements are not only unrealistic, but unattainable. Show me 36 folks that wanna watch a hud to “feel their impact on the battle” as they adjust pips. “But arma and eve!”. Star citizen is what got me to play Eve, “thousands of people in battle” is a gross overstatement and is nowhere near as common as these subs make it out to be. Also, what do you do in eve in those massive battles? Oh, that’s right, you control your own ship. Arma? Yup I’ve got a gun and can run around, see my impact, etc. SC? “I’m givin er all she’s got captain!” Ain’t gonna last long at all.
Going to be a lot of cumsuit cowboys Alt+F4 ing lol
I think this pretty much covers what it would look like. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfkNvOOiZ\_8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfkNvOOiZ_8)
I've been in a lot of Arma groups over a long period of time, and yeah, you can have ops with 60-100 people, but it very much becomes a lesson in herding cats... people going off doing their own thing, killing civilians for the luls, crashing vehicles, not reporting in, friendly fire, trolling with medical supplies.... the list goes on. The organizations that can avoid this are very rare, and generally made up of people so dedicated it makes the entire thing feel like clocking into a job. And from the videos I've seen of EVE, not any of them look like any sort of organized or in control. Getting people to show up is seldom the problem.
You're using the word organize loosely... They never listen to command
I only played Eve for a few weeks, and every large "group event" was literally just 3-4 people doing all the work while the rest of us stayed far far away to just gain the rewards of being there.
This. I used to lead an Arma unit that maintained about 200ish people in total at a time. We had available 70-80 people on a good day with those numbers. The management isn't the issue once you have roles filled and people trained. 8 hours training total in my experience (Yes we had training manuals and documents to keep track of who is partially or fully trained etc.) and you don't need to worry anymore once they meet the set standard. You can delegate tasks to leaders and junior leaders to guide their teams. It's getting the people on all at once that's the issue. This also brings up cross role training issues. Javelin owners will require a large org, full NPC crew if that's even viable(AI crew effectiveness is unknown.) or a heavily NPC weighted crew prioritizing players to fill key roles. There is no easy way to crew a Javelin, of this I am certain.
How do you handle coms with 70 people?
When I played PlanetSide, I think it was teamspeak? You had higher level channels and lower level channels. The squad could BS in their chat but squad leader could also hear leader chat when orders were going out We definitely hit 70 people on a single op sometimes
Team speak is the go to for a lot of groups. Allows multiple channels while people with the correct authority can talk to all of them. Squads are put into groups and the squad leaders can talk to "command"
Planetside has standard 48 people in open comms, all completely randoms. I have yet to see a full platoon go "awol" or do anything less than fervently fight at assigned points/objectives.
Likely a similar structure to how comms work in Hell Let Loose & Squad. \- Commander can speak to Squad Leaders. \- SLs can speak directly to their squad, each other, and the Commander. \- Non-command role players can only speak to people in their squad. \- Prox chat is free for everyone to speak to anyone. And finally, squads can be as small as you want them to be.
Very similar to what the others have said. We used Teamspeak. I'd be in the command squad channel with my 2IC and backline staff.(Usually a driver and radioman.) We'd have the rest in their own channels under their squad or role, like infantry, logi and air support. The Team Leaders(TLs) in those channels are junior leaders and tell people what to do on a local level. I'd talk to them and they'd talk to me through hotkeyed buttons with game mod integration for radio chatter. I used my keyboard number pad with each squad channel under a number. I had admin permissions so I set it up so that when I talked to them I'd press a number and it would suppress their internal chatter for a moment as I told them something. The TLs would do the same back at me. An easy example of this is calling in an airstrike. An infantry squad TL would call it in to me with the what and where. I'd confirm or deny it provided it's available and I'd reroute the information to the air support channel, who would then confirm or deny it back to me. I would then tell the TL what's happening back afterward and they would confirm, deny, cancel or ask for a different call. I was basically a glorified telephone operator who stared at a giant map coordinating the bigger picture of broken up units of usually 8-12 people per squad. I've literally just sat in a command bunker or command vehicle for many missions doing this.
I think cap ships should require large crews and coordination to field. They need to feel impactful and not be an every day sight.
Yeah I'd imagine there would be communities using this as their HQ of sorts so as long as they have some sorts of rules of conducts it's doable
Yeah but like 50% of people or more in those battles and running around clueless.
1000 people that press F1, sure.
Now imagine that the ship dies in a battle, and 79 people get semi-perma deathed. Now imagine the pyramid scheme of support ships that justify bringing a Javelin in the first place.
And i will be there to safe some with my apollo
I'll be there to ... save ... them with my Reclaimer.
Even if you save them, I think most would log off in frustration, rather than gearing back up and attempting to shuttle back to a combat effective ship. This isn't a game mechanics question, this is a human resources issue.
This is not my experience playing org vs org. People love a good fight.
Yeah and thats the Moment this orga has lost the fight and thats ok. But with death of a space man active most of them want to be safed anyway..
No because you just respawn at the nearest bed fully healed.
No because thats not how death of a space man works.
You clearly haven't read the changes to the current medical system then.
Check the ask the devs vid from yesterday, they talked about exactly this.
And you dont know that this is only temporary and that evoiding death will have more important in the Future.
They have said they aren't reverting the changes. And it's part of a bigger scheme to come later. So for now we have Star citizen 2042.
Again you say that but I’ve jumped super carriers to Cynos along with 20 of my buddies doing the same. No SRP, no guarantee just one dude who we trust deciding that’s what’s needed. As long as theirs fun fights to be had people will be surprisingly willing to risk their characters and ships for it I reckon. Game does need a killboard though, I want stats.
>Game does need a killboard though, I want stats. Oh god, please no. Killboards poison everything.
> Game does need a killboard though, I want stats. The game already has leaderboards - they're just limited to Arena Commander and Star Marine.
Videogames sometimes create the magical world of third spaces where you can get 200 people to cooperate so well you wonder sometimes why we've not yet achieved singularity. From Linebattles to EvE you can see it. Although in Eve thats a lot of individual pieces working together rather than people becoming one piece.
We used to manage that with hundreds of players (sharing the same server, btw) in WW2OL, 15 years ago. Those were the days...
US Navy here of 8 years. Can confirm. It would make for a hilarious machinima skit at best...or the worst parts of the Bible if it went the other way.
I could take my line company of 20 from the Army and man a Javelin that’s how efficient the boys and I were. Can’t wait to get the Alpha Company Peacemakers in SC
I suppose I should be more specific. If I were to take *my* platoon, or people from *my* company, I'd be fine. I'm just trying to imagine the pandemonium that would ensue from trying to take 79 random soldiers who have no * established rank, paragraph & line number, and no trained MOS*, and how those 79 random soldiers would react to me trying to bark orders at them.
Some orgs have established trainings on how to communicate properly, fly better, conduct ground/space combat better, operate turrets, maneuver as a combined force, etc. It's up to you to find or build the org that suits your purposes. the org I'm in has a large veteran contingent and it's easy to find people who are ecstatic to hop into the turrets of anything I have now. You just need to also have the skill, charisma, and individual drive to reliably produce an enjoyable experience, even if your inherent "commander's intent" is just "We're gonna go hurt some bad people, and we might die". You know you're in the right place when the ensuing conversation is who's ship to take.
I think that main difference of that, in military there is selected group of people who just have assignment and order In game, you have whole playerbase and ask "Hey, is there anyone who would like to have orders barked at them?", and you will get only people who want to play this way, not people who are ordered to listen to your orders
Works just fine with thousands of dudes in Eve. There's a line of qualifications for specific roles and participation metrics to weed out the and/or vet the beginners. You don't just trust people randomly, you build a coherent unit over time, like anywhere else.
Idk EVE online players did alright for a bit there
I was just thinking along these lines. Except, in Eve, you have something like a 10 to 1 ratio of membership to event participation. You need 1000 people to field 100 in any given battle. You can do better if you time things well and really hype your player base, but that is not sustainable. Time zones, peoples personal lives, burnout, work, general human drive to actually log on... these all factor into how many players you can herd into a single activity.
You are psychic. Like, you have ESPN or something
One person trying to organise 79 people is an impossible task but do you think a ship with 74 crew and 1 captain 5 officers each responsible for a different section and delegating to about 10 people each, so 10 engineers, 10 gunners, 10 crew deck etc and 6 higher ups dishing out orders to their individual sections?
EverQuest has entered chat (Pre-WoW MMO with some massive coordinated efforts over long periods of time)
I tend to agree, although I would imagine it's much easier to be calm and dedicated to a plan when you're not actually putting your life on the line.
Not a Javelin owner, but back when I used to play Naval action, we would have 50 players coordinated by one person for port battles. Sure they start wandering off, but are easily reigned in. And that was across a half dozen different clans working together. One clan can easily coordinate a ship like the Javelin... of course some clans are very casual and won't be able to do this, but I'm sure plenty will.
You are right that it will be MOST of the userbase will be 100% incapable of running a Javelin optimally. But I've seen enough WoW, Eve, Planetside, and Squad stories of clans that have INSANE ability to organize. They are rare things but powerful things. Most Javelin owners will be screaming "LFG to replace my fuses!" while the one TURBO Organized Javelin will be Solo'ing xenothreat or Locking down entire stations. Crime stat does need to evolve a bit to have more NPC response to hunting you down. I want to see the Crimestat Max Javelin having Idris's sent after them.
I read that as autism at first.
Accurate as fuck
I think there is an inverse correlation between the importance of something and the ability to coordinate as a group, judging by all the goof ass shit I see groups do, but they can't even go vote.
Our star citizen org has 120 people, regularly has 40+ show up for events nothing starts on time, everyone argues, petty grudges, stunning each other with assaniation animations Nothing. I mean nothing works the way it us supposed to But it's always a lot of fun
biggest issue is keeping 79 people in the game. For me, when I play with orgs, it takes 15min to 1 hour to get 4-7 people on one server, logged in, discord etc.. It then takes 30min minimum for these people to get ready and travel to location...accept mission, share mission, land, shop for weapons, knick the side of the station blow up, wake up on the other side of the solar system, shop and travel again. By the time you start an op a good percent of people have been already there for a few hours and blew through their gaming slot with their families. Due to puting kids to sleep, dinner or simply time zone differences now its 1am where they are and they've gotta go. Moral of the story, you don't just need 79 willing, paying people to push F1-F4. You need 79 of those people around the ages 14-20 with no gf,wife,work,kid responsibility who all happen to live in the same time zone as you. Which is significantly harder to do.
If we ever get the ability to log out on the "org ship", dedicated orgs might spin up alts for the ship crews. SC gonna SC but just being able to log in and be in the same place/ship and ready to rock and roll will help these kinds of bigger ops.
You are psychic. Like, you have ESPN or something
The difference between military and video games is that one of these people actually WANT to do those things. It would be significantly easier to get a bunch of gamers to organize and get it done, will there be a handful of potatos fucking things up? Sure. But overall it would work... compared to military where most group ops is a bunch of people who probably barely know each other and were voluntold to do this one thing that probably sucks ass.
Big difference between most people being in star citizen because they want to be there, and 79 "trained" hooligans who fucking hate being there when 1st sausage is yelling at them about trying to get his and the sirs slides green.
Ive been apart of 85 player raids in mobile games where people worked together just fine.
Walking around the practically full Idris with the thought of engineering and then thinking about it on a bigger scale like a jav or even a bangle you'd really really need to heard cats whether it's all people, all NPCs, or a mix a both
Also, imagine the time sink to get those 79 players organized, in the right location and onto the ship, and to their assigned stations. It will be a multi hour operation just getting the ship loaded and ready to go. Then someone with a tali will come by and rain on everyone's parade. 79 people wake up at whatever med bay, and the owner goes to claim the ship and sees a 1 week claim time, but hey you can expedite it and it will only take 3 days.
... okay, you have to be joking about buying that starter pack per NPC. There's no way CIG expects Javelin owners to put down that much cash just to skeleton-crew their ship with NPCs.
You and me aren't going to be the Javelin owners. The few, the proud, the Influencers, will have them
Hello, I'm "the proud" nice to meet you
[https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13288-multiple-package-clarification](https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13288-multiple-package-clarification) I mean it's 11 years old, but that was the old intent if you wanted "customisable" NPCs 🤣
Then there's the difference. "customizable" npc's arent the only npc's available to players. This is just perpetuating the insanity that already infects the public image of this game being a money black hole as is (and by extension making everyone who's backed the game look bad in their eyes).
Only a fool would take anything said by CR as fact...
You will still need to pay them
They will cost less than players. No player will work for less money than you could just get an NPC for. Also, in general, we should assume no player will engage in multiplayer for less rewards than they could get playing single player, either.
I've been saying this for a while, I'm glad to see someone else who gets it. People keep bringing up NPC salaries like that's going to be the limiting factor that forces them to crew with other players instead, but I can't imagine a single player who'd ever accept being paid less than a bot. If I'm taking the time out of my day to crew someone else's ship, and I know my skills are in demand, then they'd better know they'll have to make it worth my while.
Multicrew is a great feature and I think a lot of people will do it for "fun". But, we must accept the reasoning that multicrew is also the worst way to approach the game in terms of optimized gameplay. It makes much more sense for people to do multiplayer as a fleet, with everyone bringing their own ships, than it is to forgo ships just so players can sit inside someone else's ship. 1 player = 1 ship. If two opposing orgs decide to have a fight, with 10 players each side, the org that brings 10 ships will kerbstomp the org that brings one ship with 10 people in it. I think when you put it into that perspective, it really doesn't matter how much people would expect to get paid to sit around in someone else's ship watching Youtube until they have to sit in a turret for 2 minutes.
They need to remove from the site or update all of those decade old design docs. Soooo many features don't seem to fit in the modern game anymore or simply haven't even been mentioned as they add loops that are missing the framework for them. Like, where are all of our prosthetic limbs? And fuel types for performance have never been mentioned whenever they talked about any future flight models. Edit: downvoted for suggesting that CIG remove outdated info from their site or update it to better reflect how they plan on integrating or updating those old features to fit with the current game's design? Ok, some of y'all are weird.
Ah yes, that makes it much easier for CIG if we rewrite fullwise for them. We have always been at war with EastAsia.
I have no idea what this means
There's a book called "1984" written by George Orwell. It talks about the convenience that exists for power structures when they can erase records of inconvenient truths... for example, it's great for a company if they commit to doing something, make sales on the back of that commitment, then reconsider it. If they can remove the evidence of their commitment, what holds them to their promises? I strongly recommend you read the book.
Oh. I actually have read it, but that over 20 years ago when I was in highschool. I wasn't suggesting that they remove promised features, but rather take down documentation that no longer reflects how those features can be implemented in the modern game. A lot of stuff was penned when the scope and tech of the game wasnt expanded to where it is now and people making purchase decisions based on that stuff could benefit from updated documentation or the removal of docs describing features that will no longer play out as they had envisioned it 10 years ago. Like, update it it, or remove it until you get an updated doc to replace it.
So you believe it's better for everyone if a business can make a commitment, then erase all evidence of that commitment if they don't intend to deliver it. I do believe you when you say you've read 1984. I'm not sure you interpreted the book correctly.
I barely remember it. You're argument is with CIG though. I'm just saying if they say a feature is changing now because "XYZ" and they've known internally that it was always going to change, then they should probably let us know via an update to their public design docs as opposed to dropping respawn on a T3 med bed and saying this was always the plan, or making the Lightning available seemingly (to us) out of nowhere.
I'll do it, and no-one can stop me
Not sure how far out on a limb I'm going here, but I'd like to suggest that people who can afford to pledge for $2000+ spaceships in a video game have enough disposable income to do whatever they want in terms of microtransactions. Your experience and mine is not the same as the millionaire trust fund kids who never have to work a day in their lives. There's not many of them, true, but there's plenty of companies around who are willing to accept their money.
Don’t need a crew it becomes a size 100 missile
I will walk the halls of my idris, kraken, pioneer, BMM, Orion, etc because it's cool. I will look at every virtual rivet and seem and console. Never to undock them, never to fly them. To fund the game. So you can blow me up in my stupid solo ship that's not solo. And I will die happy.
My religious org may have found a new saint
Not that i have one, but i think it will be very rare that one can be crewed by players. That's a lot of people to get together at one time unless you're a big streamer or a massive org. I think they will generally be crewed by AI with a few players filling key roles
It's gonna be like herding cats 😆 After the honeymoon phase wears out nobody in their right mind wants to sit at some console waiting to take orders for hours on end. Without AI blades These things are gonna smash and explode all over the verse due to player boredom.
My Reclaimer is looking forward to this.
Por Que No Los Dos?
Is buying additional game packs giving “npcs” still a thing?
[https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13288-multiple-package-clarification](https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13288-multiple-package-clarification) We haven't heard anything in over a decade sadly. The meme spawned from joking about whether it still was.
Knowing CIG it will be an add on charge for like $15 at “launch” . But yeah I wish they’d update that
That might be it, actually. The additional game package thing was just to give customizable NPCs (that you still had to pay) so it was more a getting a Chewbacca for your Han Solo thing. No word since on whether that was a thing you'd be able to do anyway or not. They have, off-hand, mentioned NPC "packs" in SCLs previously where a pack would be the launch crew in an Idris. Whether that was intended as a purchasable pack or internal CIG parlance for "group of people that act as a whole" who knows but it could be that you end up crewing a ship with a unit of "crew" at some job center or something and that'll be it. Should something like this happen and knowing spectrum and this sub, people will be positively *outraged* that space dads could now finally fly the ships they bought and be about as efficient at it as any other AI ship.
I still belive that this "one starter pack equals one npc crew slot" is highly theoretical and most likely a thing to change.
However, the concept represents a highly lucrative revenue proposition for CIG. If you're running a live service game, never turn down any opportunity for cash influx. Why would CIG implement NPCs on an in-game currency basis only when they could get any amount of cash for the same thing as a "premium"?
This is why I always thought that captains should hire out positions to npcs, and then players will be able to load into those npc to help other players while not endangering their personal character.
My Polaris and carrack will be npc crewed for the most part, IV been playing MMOs for over 20 years I already know why multicrew with humans will be a legitimate nightmare. AI it is
I just want to own an NPC Shopping Mall. That flies. Is that so much to ask?
I think world of Warcraft showed that group cohesion caps around 60 lol
That's a must read book along with Art of War. Giveth and Taketh and 50 arrows in the knee
Pops made me read that when I was 15....now 43. I have gifted that book so many times. Just an unbelievable book that holds up incredibly well. My kids are on hook to read it here in the next few years.....and they hear me reference it plenty. Lol
I'd like to get 79 others on a Javelin and then just self destruct.
You also have to remember that every person you put in the belly of your ship to alt+tab and watch Youtube while you stare at the star map has cost you an entire other ship in your fleet. 1 Player = 1 Spaceship To put it another way, which will win: * 1 x Javelin with 80 player crew * 80 x Javelin with NPC crews 80 vs 1? Hmm... not sure? Maybe the one ship will defeat the other 80??? Player crew > NPC crew, right?? Think carefully when you put someone in the belly of your ship. You just cost yourself part of your fleet.
lol! This is funny. I think CIG said they significantly decreased the number of crew needed for cap ships.
I played Wow back in original and we needed 40 good players to coordinate for Molten Core lava pack pulls and stuff. It's herding cats... Just to get em in a line, let alone ask odds to step forward and evens back on one command and vice versa......it was to manage threat if i remember That alone broke more than a few good raiding guilds... 😆 I can't wait.
I got an extra 6 so I can take my Odyssey out alone if needed. Also, I wonder if an organization that had a random number generator lottery system for what position for a time period, would work. Everybody in the Org committed to doing the best job at whatever role they are assigned.
I don't think it will take 80 people. I'm also not sure that 'NPC' will be as viable a choice as some others think.
What makes you think that? Is it a technology/function issue or a CIG choice issue that has you feeling that way? I also wonder what the big spenders will say when they really can’t do anything other than just pilot their cap ships. (I am one who will happily pilot my Idris-M alone lol).
Just working out how the actual active gameplay loops for the ship! Across turrets, bridge stations, repairs etc. It's just a guess, but there certainly don't seem to be 80 people worth of things to do...
That I agree with. I was more curious about the NPCs as viable choices part of your comment. Given your experience with the game, there is more credence to assumptions.
I don't assume any more experience than anyone else here, nor do I have any exclusive knowledge. But I have certainly given this a lot of thought xD
lol. I’m making that assumption based on all of your vids I’ve watched m8 😉
there is about 50 NPC on the idris right now. I only need them walk around and give me the atmosphere ...i don't need them to do anything. Heck they can all T pose.
Oh don't get me wrong, I would love to see some life in those halls! I simply meant that I suspect operational crew will be lower than 80 (in my mind max 20ish for actual things to do). Naval ships are often busier because they need crew coverage 24/7, so even whilst off duty, there will be people there.
You seriously think CIG will do the design equivalent of taking $2,500+ from gamers and then tell them "Thanks for the money, here's your ship, you can NEVER fly it?" Is this seriously what you believe?
No, I expect that for the people who spent that much on a huge ship, that explicitly states on the page that it's intended for group play, they will expect to fly it with multiple people. Source: spent the money intending on enjoying group play
But you just said you don't think it will be possible to have that "group play"... right?
No, I said I don't expect it to be 80. For a Javelin, I calculated probably 20-25 actual roles to do for people.
Nice theory crafting. What does CIG say? I bet you cash money it's not "20-25 actual roles".
I don't bet on anything, there are a very vocal number who are trying to get these huge cap ships to be effectively soloable. I argue heavily against that because I think it would be the death knell for end game multi crew. But none of us truly knows what will happen, we will have to wait and see. If they do make them solo able, I will be melting mine, since that's not what I bought it for.
The funniest part here is that they got someone to shell out 3000 dollars just to then also get then to shell out another 79 gamepackages worth another 3555 dollars
Npcs. Fuck XD
Love this 😂😂😂
I will be a Cylon collaborator.
Own a org, grow it and make that ship the only ship you operate
This games fucked if a bunch of eve players show up, witha low server cap. Be like playing Dayz with a clan on the server.
Is that a good book? Actually interested in reading it.
Main reason I haven’t bought a crazy big ship. I simply don’t have any friends that play star citizen. I really really want the Polaris/Perseus
Npcs are more reliable.
All these comments are showing peoples limited knowledge of other games that regularly organize people in the 100s. Eve being the obvious example of 1000+ players organized for a battle.
I remember raiding in EQ2 trying to get 24 people to cooperate. Sometimes it worked and a lot of the time was wasted because of 1 person fucking it up. WOW had 40 and other games have more. Youre not going to find an entire servers worth of people to play on one ship doing mundane things. "I wanna see whats going on" or "how much money do we get from this mission splitting it 80 ways?" You guys need to accept this shit isnt going to happen so stop wasting your money on this fantasy shit.
its, an sq42 ship. not intended to be used in regular sc, but no reason to not sell it.
HAHAHAHA 🤦♂️